Eh, who cares? In a few months they'll jump on the Ted Cruz bandwagon until they realize he's batshiat insane. Then it'll be on to the next non-white guy they'll all pretend to think highly of. By the time '16 election season rolls around they'll nominate another stuffy, rich, old white guy

Rubio mocking himself was actually the best thing he could have done. He's got to admit that things went wrong, and he did. Making light of it himself makes it much easier to get past, reducing the value in mocking.

Anyone who takes a sip of water during a prolonged period of speaking in a hot room full of bright lights is clearly not qualified to run for president maybe at some point in the future. I'm glad we got that all cleared up!

The rebuttal is hard. Not only because it is done immediately after the pomp and circumstance of the State of the Union. Not only because you're following a man charismatic enough to be voted president.

But it's incredibly hard because it is by necessity written well before the speech it is supposed to 'rebut'. That leaves you with two things to focus on - selling a vision and style. Worse, you're hamstrung in selling a vision because you're ostensibly speaking for a party and not just yourself.

That leaves you with style as the one thing you have to nail if you want your speech to do anything for yourself or your party.

And that is where Jindal, Ryan, and Rubio all fell short. That is why the water thing 'stuck'. Because almost by default the content of the speech is designed by circumstance to be forgettable, base-rallying talking points. Your job is to arrange and sell them in a convincing manner. That's why the awkward pauses, shuffles, gulps of water and other non-sense has so much sticking power.

Maybe a motionless face shot on someone whose charged with just repeating old party talking points isn't the best way to introduce fresh new party voices. It's basically designed so the content of what they say is meaningless and we pick apart their presentation instead.

I was actually pleased and gratified that Rubio did take a sip of water. It helped to accomplish something (although for a short time) that I wanted him to do after the first two minutes of his speech: STFU!!!!

odinsposse:Maybe a motionless face shot on someone whose charged with just repeating old party talking points isn't the best way to introduce fresh new party voices. It's basically designed so the content of what they say is meaningless and we pick apart their presentation instead.

Nah, just kidding. Keep on truckin' guys!

Yep, nothing will court the Latino vote in places like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and California any better than putting a Cuban-American on the GOP ticket.

odinsposse:Maybe a motionless face shot on someone whose charged with just repeating old party talking points isn't the best way to introduce fresh new party voices.

what he did which I haven't heard from any "talking points" is directly challenge 0bama's false narrative (just because you don't want over regulation in the name of global warming, does not mean that you want to pollute the water and feed mercury to kids).

Again, Rubio at least tried to deal with that problem superficially. In his SOTU rebuttal, he told a story of how government helped his family, with college loans in his own youth and with Medicare for his parents.

So Rubio is a democrat, in favor of big government??LOLOLOLOLOL

When is he switching parties to get ready for the DEM primaries in 2016??

namatad:Again, Rubio at least tried to deal with that problem superficially. In his SOTU rebuttal, he told a story of how government helped his family, with college loans in his own youth and with Medicare for his parents.

So Rubio is a democrat, in favor of big government??LOLOLOLOLOL

When is he switching parties to get ready for the DEM primaries in 2016??

I loved this part too:

"Unless you give up Medicare for yourself, your parents won't get it" (Paraphrased)

They did ads with this cheesy crap in Florida back in the election and it didn't work, why would they do it again now?

When Rubio went on The Daily Show and made a complete fool of himself, in spite of a more than fair hearing from Stewart, it was clear this guy is incapable of actually being the great hope for the GOP. Sorry guys, try again.

tenpoundsofcheese:odinsposse: Maybe a motionless face shot on someone whose charged with just repeating old party talking points isn't the best way to introduce fresh new party voices.

what he did which I haven't heard from any "talking points" is directly challenge 0bama's false narrative (just because you don't want over regulation in the name of global warming, does not mean that you want to pollute the water and feed mercury to kids).

By saying that a desire to prevent companies from polluting the air and water is 'overregulating in the name of global warming' would suggest otherwise.